The Most Comfortable Plane Neck Pillows for Travel

Updated on November 25, 2010

For anyone who's ever tried to sleep in an airport or on a plane, train, bus or automobile - you know how uncomfortable and impossible it is to get any real quality sleep. If you're tired enough, you might manage to fall asleep for brief periods of time, but then your head starts rolling and bobbing around and you keep getting jolted awake. It can feel like torture when you're exhausted and all you want to do is sleep! This is where neck pillows for travel really can help you.

Every time I am going on a plane now, I bring my travel pillow with me. I
learned the hard way that if I don't, I will just end up trying to
ignore my stiff neck as my head bobs up and down. As I said, this sort
of thing is torture and something that I don't want or have to put
myself through. Who wants that? Because travelling is tiring enough as
it is without being more tired because you can't take advantage of
perfect opportunities to sleep like when you're on a plane (or a train,
bus or automobile).

Standard Neck Pillow for Travel - the kind you're used to seeing

Trying to sleep on a plane without a neck pillow for travel. Not my idea of quality sleep!

There are a few types of neck pillows for travel available these days that can help support your neck and help you get that sleep that we all need. The kind that I have and the kind that you're probably most used to seeing are the U-shaped pillows like the one you see above here. To use this kind of pillow, simply drape it around your neck as if you're holding a snake (I've never done that). It will hold your head in place and stop it from bobbing all around.

If you don't like this shade of green or if you prefer a different material or brand, here are some other standard neck pillows for travel worth looking at:

But wait, there's more!

As I said, there are many types of travel pillows available these days and once I got looking around, I discovered that some of them are rather odd looking.

Sure, who cares what other people think but still. You may have seen this travel pillow (right) on TV. I have! Every time I see it, I think it looks funny but I must admit that it really is a great idea - just plop the pillow on your lap, lay your head down and zzzzz away. At first I didn't like the thought of having to lug something like this on a plane but then I realized that it's inflatable/deflatalble! If you can get past how it looks, I say go for it.

Check out the reviews on Amazon - rated very highly

Another weird one

Here's another very unique looking travel pillow and again, one that inflates/deflates for easy packing. The idea here is that you lay this long pillow across your body and it can strap to most headrests on the top so the whole thing will stay in place. It looks intriguing and is rated very highly on Amazon (about 4.8 stars out of 5 with 80+ reviews).

The absolute coolest and most comfortable neck pillows for travel by DogBones

I think I saved the best for last here with these super cool travel pillows that are in the shape of dog bones! The special shape of these pillows allows for proper alignment of your head and neck. They are not huge at about 14"x6" meaning they are still a great size for traveling.

The best part about these pillows is they come in so many pretty and interesting colors and patterns. I want to have all of them!

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